Hajda! by Hajda Banda / Гайда Банда

Hajda Banda / Гайда Банда is a Belarusian-Polish band performing traditional dances and songs from the Podlasie region in eastern Poland, the western parts of Belarus, and Polesye on the Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian border.
Though performing solely using acoustic, traditional instruments – such as the violin, the hammered dulcimer, three-row Polish accordion, and frame drum – the band has been developing rural music of the borderlands, drawing from both Poles and Belarusians and adding their unique style and ideas as the only big-band ensemble whose roots run deep in the wetlands of the Białowieża Forest.
As a 92-year old dweller of Dubicze Cerkiewne – a tiny village in the heart of Podlasie – said after listening to the band’s concert in his village: ‘they play like in the old days’. As a 4-year old girl from Białystok, the capital town of Podlasie, says after attending their gig in her city, ‘they play beautiful music like a star in the sky, cheerful and happy’.
The band’s debut album Hajda! (‘Let’s go!’) was released February 24th, 2023 by one of the most prestigious world music labels in Poland, Karrot Kommando. The group was granted the Audience Award, Jury’s 3rd prize, and the Szczecin Philharmonic Award during the ‘New Tradition’ 24th Polish Radio Folk Festival in 2022.
Hajda Banda was established in Autumn 2021 on the initiative of violinist Daria Butskaya as an artistic continuation of her “Gaude Polonia’’ scholarship provided by the National Centre for Culture. Since then, the group has played more than 60 concerts across the entire Poland – attending world and traditional music festivals, various venues in major cities, small towns, and tiny village parties. All the members have a decade-long experience performing different genres of folk music with bands like Pokryk, Kapela Brodów, Sw@da, Żemerwa, Orkiestra Taneczna Bonanza, or R.U.T.A.. The band is based in Warsaw, Bielsk Podlaski, Kraków, and Rybnik.

AWARDS OF THE ALBUM:
Songlines Magazine Readers' Album Of The Year 2024
Polish Radio Folk Phonogram of the Year 2023 Award - III Award
Wirtualne Gęśle 2023 - Audience Award for the best Polish folk music album of the year - III Award

Hajda Banda / Гайда Банда is a Belarusian-Polish band performing traditional dances and songs from eastern Poland’s Podlasie region, the western parts of Belarus, and Polesye on the Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian border.

hajdabanda.pl